art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

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It is one of the features of the industrialization process that art works, too, have
largely changed from handmade pieces, each of which is unique, to mass-produced
cultural phenomena such as those made by Madonna. The fragmenting of “the
audience” or “culture” occurs at both the social and the individual levels. At the social
level, the multiplication of objects dissolves social cohesion by pulling individuals in
different directions. This diffusion at the same time creates an environment in which
individual identities are pulled in multiple directions, with the result that items of
attention for each individual receive less attention over time. At the social level, this
fragmentation of social cohesion has been discussed as audience fragmentation. At
the individual level, it might be measured in level of concentration, amount of time
spent on or with a type of art object, and amount of time spent on or with individual
art objects. The result is that the multiplication of objects reduces the cultural capital
built up by each individual as well as the general fund of cultural capital in society.
(Reproducibility issues also intersect with authenticity issues and intellectual property
issues, which are unfortunately beyond the scope of this paper.)
The art world as a set of market roles
Viewing art as a commodity has implications for how the various roles and
institutions in the art world are understood. The function of art criticism in recent
years can be understood as that of a more or less sophisticated public relations
or promotion apparatus. Critics historically have stood between the artist and the
marketplace as economic gatekeepers who play a significant role in determining
price. Intellectuals can play the role of brokers or mediators, bringing art in from
other places and times, commissioning it, translating it, criticizing it, and publicizing it
(Forgacs, 1990). Journalists, too, have been described as translators of art, bringing
it to a mass public (Carey, 1989).
Those holding the curatorial role in museums traditionally competed in terms of
cultural capital. As museums have become massified, however, the role has become
one of marketing, with design decisions governed by product design concerns rather
than those of aesthetics or another logic (Goldberger, 1994). Blockbuster shows that
provide, most importantly, monetary capital for museums struggling to stay alive
are often sponsored by corporations. In such instances, it is the corporations that
gain the cultural capital in exchange for financial support, while museums to some
degree have lost cultural capital in the bargain. Marketing practices, like those used
in film, are now using sophisticated psychological testing to gauge audience response
before art is displayed. With pop art, art itself became part of the advertising world,
significantly contributing to the creation of a culture oriented towards consumerism
as a means of expansion at a time when corporations were blocked from expanding
by mergers and acquisitions by antitrust law (Mamiya, 1992). A less influential but still
significant subset of art as a consumer product is art as decor, with pieces chosen by
interior designers to fit a particular “look” in a room, and in the appropriate colours.
A number of people also treat art as an investment.
The two auction houses through which prices for fine art are set, Sotheby’s and
Christie’s, play such a strong role in making the art market that they have been taken